A man sparked panic among his co-passengers after he attempted to open an airplane’s emergency exit door during mid-flight.
The man, who claimed to be a first-time airplane passenger, said that he tried to open the emergency exit door because he “urgently” needed to go to the bathroom and thought that it was the door to the toilet.
After the man tried to open the door, the passengers of the said flight, which was from New Delhi to Patna in India, started screaming inside the aircraft, local news reported.
Cabin crews immediately tackled the man away from the door and ordered him to sit down for the rest of the flight.
Upon the plane’s arrival in Patna, airport securities escorted the man to the police for questioning.
Sanowar Khan, the officer in charge of the local police, said that the man admitted to his mistake saying that he got confused since it was his first time inside a plane.
“People asked him why he was doing so (trying to open the exit gate). He told them that he needed to use the washroom urgently and kept tugging at the exit door.
“Pandemonium prevailed amid all this and he was restrained and finally handed over to us. He said that the confusion happened because he had boarded a flight for the first time in his life,” Khan told Kolkata-based newspaper The Telegraph.
Khan added that the man, who was later identified as a banker in his late 20s, was released after the questioning without charges.
A spokesperson from the involved airlines also said that the plane and its 150 passengers all landed safely in Patna at 7.35pm on Saturday despite the incident.
